To the nameless

She was aged between twenty and forty; it was difficult to be sure, a hard life on the streets had taken its toll. At one time she would have been beautiful, but the once strong features had sunken beneath a tangle of broken veins and bruises, as though she was being reclaimed by the wilderness. Her eyes pleaded a singular infinite pain, her mouth a toothless gape, slumped in rags these are lives not yet lost, and in forsaking them we become lost ourselves. As children they too may have laughed from the boughs of trees, or painted joy through seasons of snow or gilded everlasting summers, perhaps they were beaten by merciless fists, or were loved immeasurably, or were hated without reason; a million forgotten moments, a thousand dreams lost in a city of discarded souls.